Pay-per use for data-network-based public access services
AssigneeNortel Networks Limited
InventorsBernie G. Jansen, Tomasz Celkowski, Nick Isgro
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus for vending public multimedia services has a telephone, a multimedia terminal, a payment receiver for receiving an authorization to accept charges for enabling use of at least one of the telephone and the multimedia terminal, a file receiver for receiving a file, the file containing a field with cost per unit time for a service and a field with a modifier for the cost per unit time for the service, memory for storing the file, and a usage cost determiner for determining a usage cost based on a time of use of the service and information in the file.
Claims6
An apparatus for vending public multimedia services, the apparatus comprising:
- a telephone;
- a multimedia terminal;
- said telephone and said multimedia terminal for receiving data at a rate that is variable on a second-by-second basis;
- a payment receiver for receiving an authorization to accept charges for enabling use of at least one of said telephone and said multimedia terminals;
- a file receiver for receiving a file, said file containing a cost-per-unit time for a service and a data arrival rate modifier for said service;
- memory for storing said file;
- a data rate measurer for periodically determining a rate at which data associated with said services is received;
- and
- a usage cost determiner for determining a usage cost based upon both a time of use of said service and said periodically determined rate at which data associated with said service was received.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.